Faculty News

Pok Chi Lau, Professor of Photography, has been accepted to show a large body of work at the Lian Zhou International Photo Festival beginning November 20, 2005 through January of 2006.   Lau will also give a lecture at the festival on Nov. 21, 2005.   All 38 photographs shown at the Lian Zhou International Festival are from Lau's book, "Dreams of the Golden Mountain."   Information about this book can be found at www.goldenmountaindream.com.

David Fedele, Assistant Professor of Flute, will perform with contemporary music group Ensemble 21 in Odense, Denmark on October 26, 2005, and will also perform as guest soloist with the Muncie Symphony Orchestra in Muncie, Illinois on November 5th, 2005.

Professor of Musicology Paul Laird was recently invited to hold the position of Endowed Chair in Music at the University of Alabama School of Music.   This appointment is being divided five ways for the semester, and Professor Laird is the first recipient of the position.   Laird will assist in teaching a class on the Broadway musical, and he will also give a public lecture and be available to work with students.   This residency will take place from January 19-February 9, 2006.  

John Paul Johnson has been named the Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Music & Dance at the University of Kansas. He will continue as Director of Choral Activities and Professor of Music. Dr. Johnson joined the KU faculty in 2002 after twenty-six years of teaching college and public school music in Texas, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Under his direction, Dr. Johnson's choirs have sung at numerous state, regional and national music conventions. He has served as a conductor, clinician, or adjudicator for more than 400 events throughout the US, Europe, and the Caribbean. Dr. Johnson received his BM from Westminster College in PA and his MM and DMA from the University of Wisconsin.

Gregory Thomas, former principal of Gregory Thomas Associates, Los Angeles, and current Chair of the Department of Design at KU's School of Fine Arts, recently learned that a major signage/wayfinding program designed for the City of Alhambra, CA is being implemented. Thomas designed a brand program for the Downtown Business District in 2004 which composed a new brand name and design application. Thomas was then approached to develop a city wide program for Alhambra. The first applications of the program are currently being fabricated and positioned according to design guidelines established by Thomas. Eventually all city parking, directional and street identification signs will be implemented according to the 30-page design specifications developed by Gregory Thomas Associates.

Alhambra is an independent municipality of 100,000 located directly east and adjoining downtown Los Angeles.

KU Voice Professor Joyce Castle received the Christopher Keene Award from New York City Opera in recognition of her performances fall of 2004 as "Mme. De la Croissy" in Poulenc's The Dialogues of the Carmelites . She is also a newly elected Board Member of New York City Opera.

This Spring Castle sang the role of the "Mother" in Menotti's The Consul with Arizona Opera Company, sang French cabaret songs with Sir Richard Rodney Bennett in a benefit for Glimmerglass Opera at New York's Carlisle Hotel, and sang three songs written expressly for her by Jake Heggie. The University of Kansas General Research Fund, the School of Fine Arts and the Department of Music and Dance commissioned these songs. The entire song cycle, called Statuesque will have its world premiere December 5, 2005 at KU with the composer at the keyboard.

Greg Thomas , Chair of the Department of Design, was selected as one of the Senior Administrative Fellows for 2005-2006 at the University of Kansas.

Starting in June of 2005, Thomas was also chosen to write a periodic guest column on marketing for Ingram's Magazine, Kansas City's Business Magazine.

Professor of Musicology Paul Laird recently had his book The Baroque Cello Revival: An Oral History published by Scarecrow Press. His review of Geoffrey Block's Richard Rodgers (Yale University Press, 2003) will appear in the next issue of Music Library Association Notes.

KU Voice Professor Joyce Castle is in New York City for several weeks performing two different works in two different theaters at Lincoln Center. During her partial leave from the Kansas University Department of Music and Dance, she will perform in an opera, while rehearsing then participating in the world premier of a new creation.

Her performances begin with her role of Mme. de Croissy in Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites" at the New York City Opera, Oct. 12, 17, 21, 23, 27 and 29. When not performing with the City Opera, Castle is in final rehearsals for "Belle Epoch," a new work created by Martha Clark, portraying the life and times of Toulouse Lautrec. In this show Castle sings songs from the French cabaret. "Belle Epoch" has its lst Preview performance at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center October 28, opens November 21, and runs eight shows a week until January 9.

Distinguished Professor Emeritus Roger Shimomura is having three solo print exhibitions at the Monterey Art Museum, California, University of Arkansas and Carleton College, Minnesota. He will also be in residence at all three locations during the month of September to lecture, conduct seminars and critique student work.

Photographs of grass-roots art projects made over years of travel across the nation from Earl Iversen, Design, will be showcased in in a special solo exhibition held in conjunction with the Prairie Festival of the Land Institute October 1 through October 3 in Salina, Kan. Two of Iversen's photographs are currently on view at the Spencer Musuem of Art's exhibition, "Windmills to Workshops: Lawrence and the Visual Arts," which runs from July 17 to September 26. Iverson will also give a presentation at the Eccentric Kansans Conference at the Grassroots Art Center October 1 through October 3 in Lucas, Kan.

Last summer, the Trio Fedele - David Fedele, flute; Matthew Herren, cello; and Robert Koenig, piano, performed the world premiere of Lowell Leibermann's Trio No.2, commissioned by the University of Kansas Center for Research and Dave and Gunda Hiebert for Trio Fedele at the National Flute Association Convention in Nashville. Other events at this special showing included David Fedele performing, with some of his students, a Julius Baker Tribute Concert and Fedele presenting a lecture on stage presence.

Roberta Freund Schwartz, Music and Dance, has been selected as the first recipient of the Nicholas Temperley Award for Excellence in a Dissertation in Musicology from the University of Illinois for her dissertation, "En Busca de Liberalidad: Music and Musicians in the Courts of the Spanish Nobility, 1470-1640." Nicholas Temperley, professor emeritus of historical musicology, established the biannual award to recognize the best dissertation in musicology or ethnomusicology by a University of Illinois doctoral candidate. For the inagural award, documents from the previous five years were considered. Schwartz received her degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2001.

A work by Maria Velasco, Art, is featured as part of the Avenue of the Arts Temporary Public Art Projects in Kansas City in May. Held on the street between 10th and 11th and Central in downtown Kansas City, MO, the exhibiton is on view until October. Velasco's piece is entitled "A City With A View."

Paul Laird, Music and Dance, was invited to accompany the Shawnee Mission High School Choraliers as a cultural commentator and Baroque cellist in a tour of England, Belgium, and Germany between March 12 and 22, 2004. He presented lectures on a variety of topics, including on Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, and played in a number of concerts. Laird was invited to speak about Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" at a symposium on the work sponsored by the Columbus (Ohio) Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra on May 5, 2004. Laird also did a number of preconcert lectures for the Celebrity Series at the Johnson County Community College Carlsen Center.

John Stephens, Music, will perform "Quince" in the first professional performance of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. Three KU students are also featured: tenor Hugo A. Vera will perform "Flute," mezzo-soprano Lindsey Poling will debut as "Hippolyta," and bass-baritone Jeff McEvoy will sing "Starveling." The musical opens 8 p.m. Saturday, March 13 with additional performances at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 15 and Wednesday March, 17; 8 p.m. Friday March,19; and 2 p.m. Sunday March, 21. For ticket information contact the Lyric Opera Ticket Office at 816-471-7344 or visit the web site at www.kcopera.org.

Michael Krueger, Art, did a drawing that made the cover of a fall 2003 issue of New American Paintings, a national publication that focuses on contemporary painting. He also had a show at the Salina Art Center that later traveled to the Spencer Museum of Art titled, "Conflicting Memories." Krueger is doing a fellowship at Kala Institute in San Francisco. Additionally, he helps out with Van Go Mobile Arts, an arts-based social services organization for youth in Lawrence.

Carol Ann Carter, Art, had a one-person exhibition, "Voices from the Walls," from November 28, 2003, to January 18, 2004, at the Burgkloster Kulturforum in Luebeck, Germany. "Voices from the Walls" explored connection or touch on common cultural and personal meeting grounds. It included three video works: a title work also called "Voices from the Walls," "Devices and Strategies for Recovery and Protection" and "The Sensation of Text." Carter designed the exhibition as a site-specific multi-media installation and homage to the Burgkloster, which has been described as ''the most significant medieval monastic complex in Northern Germany."

Yoonmi Nam, Art, enjoyed several exhibitions at Jan Weiner gallery in Kansas City, Mo.: a solo show titled “Small Monotypes,” and a group show titled “Surface.” She also showed work at Holt-Russell Gallery in Baldwin City, Kan.: (“Suspended in Light and Space”); Fairbanks Gallery in Corvallis, Ore. (“Bamboo Forest”); a special “Bi-National Celebration Exhibition” with the U.S. Embassy in Asuncion, Paraguay; a group show titled “Mostly Square” at the Lawrence Arts Center in Lawrence; and the Salina Art Center’s “Taking Shape: 10 Artists reveal their processes.” She also won a general research fund for the “Bamboo Forest” exhibition from KU, and a Kansas Arts Commission Mini-Fellowship. Her work was reviewed by the Kansas City Star in June 2003.

Jim Daugherty, professor emeritus in Music, was the featured clinician for the Texas Music Educators Association State Conference. He also co-authored an article with Leon Thurman, Fairview Medical Center, Minneapolis: "Balance or blend: Are these the only vocal approaches to choral singing?" in the April issue of Choral Journal. In April he also gave a presentation on "Paradigms for Investigating Acoustical Phenomena of Choir Spacing" for the research staff at the National Center for Voice and Speech, in Denver. He presented a paper,"Conducting ensembles, not scores: Toward a post-positivist paradigm for choral music education," at the International Symposium on the Phenomenon of Singing, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, in June. He presented another paper in October at the national meeting of the College Music Society in Miami titled, "Trouble in River City? A Response to Estelle Jorgensen," as part of a panel on "Transforming Music Education.” Daugherty continues to serve on the editorial boards of two journals: the Journal for Research in Music Education, and Research and Issues in Music Education; he also is editor of the International Journal of Research in Choral Singing.

Jack Winerock, Music, taught in June at the Innsbrook Chamber Music Festival organized by the St. Louis Symphony. In July, he conducted master classes at the International Summer Music Sessions in Paris and Brussels.

Bob Brawley, Art, has had one or more works included in national invitational exhibitions: "Fifth Annual American Realist Invitational Exhibition" at Jenkins-Johnson Galleries (June, San Francisco), and "2003 Annual Realist Painting Exhibion" at Klaudia Marr Galleries (August, Santa Fe). Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA, acquired three of his drawings and two of his paintings for its permanent collection. One of his drawings was used for Drawing From Life, by Clint Brown, published by Thompson-Wadsworth. An egg-tempera on paper by Brawley was published in the Art Institute of Chicago's premiere issue of Drawing, a new art periodical.

George N. Heller, professor emeritus in Music Education, wrote the lead article, "Historical Research in Music Education and the Historiography of Kant, Spegler, and Foucault," for Volume 1, No. 1 (September 2003) of Research and Issues in Music Education. This publication is a new research journal in music education which is entirely in electronic format. It is accessible on the Internet at http://www.rimeonline.org/.

Denise Stone, Visual Art Education, was awarded a general research fund from KU to implement a study on children's personal collections. In Fall 2003, she was part of the Hall Center for the Humanities Colloquium focusing on collections. In October, she presented a paper of a pilot study she conducted last winter titled "Children's Personal Collections and Art Museum Practices." She also has been asked to serve on the editorial board for Visual Arts Research, one of two research journals in the field of art education.

María Velasco, Art, has been selected to create a temporary public art project for the Avenue of the Arts in Kansas City, Mo., for Spring 2004. Avenue of the Arts is a joint project of the Avenue of the Arts Foundation and the Municipal Art Commission,One Percent for Art Program, and is an annual event consisting of site-specific installations of artwork along Central Avenue in downtown Kansas City. Velasco is also one of six artists selected to present their work in the upcoming 2004 Avenue of the Arts, which marks the Fifth Anniversary of this program.

Tadashi Isozaki, Design, gave presentations to the KU Copyright Club and the Japanese Advanced Language department, and participated in the Hallmark Symposium. He began preliminary research for an interactive presentation "Ka-Mon Design" for the Greater Kansas City Japan Festival 2003. He also became a member of the Greater Kansas City Japan Festival 2003 committee and the KU Faculty Exhibition 2003 committee; the festival would expose students to Japanese culture through interactive multi-media. Additionally, Isozaki secured a Hallmark grant which will allow the design department to buy valuable equipment necessary to adequately prepare students for real working situations.

Daniel Politoske, Professor Emeritus of Musicology, visited Vilnius, Lithuania in September to give a lecture on "Major Composers in the United States in the Late Twentieth Century" at the Academy of Music.

John Hachmeister, Art, curated an exciting sculpture exhibition titled “Teaching the Object,” at the Arts Incubator in Kansas City, Mo. The exhibition featured 21 of the most accomplished and inspiring artists in the region, including nine faculty members from KU: Elissa Armstrong, assistant professor of ceramics; Phil Blackhurst, associate professor of sculpture; Mark Cowardin, an instructor in the art department; Jon Havener, professor of metalsmithing and jewelry; Lin Stanionis, associate professor of metalsmithing and jewelry; Jon Swindell, professor of Foundations; David Vertacnik, associate professor of ceramics; Gina Westergard, associate professor of Foundations and metalsmithing and jewelry; and Hachmeister himself.

Lois Greene, Design, gave a paper, "Maintaining Standards in Times of Financial Difficulty" at the recent national NASAD conference in Los Angeles. She also was a resource person for a workshop on financial management for new or recently appointed administrators at the same conference.

Judith McCrea, Art, had a show in December-January at AIR Gallery in New York titled "Three Stabs at Redemption."

Janet Hamburg, Dance, put together a seated exercise program for people with Parkinson’s disease in videotape and DVD formats titled, "Motivating Moves for People with Parkinson’s." She produced the video with the help of the Parkinson's Disease Foundation at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City and KU’s Continuing Education. The Parkinson Foundation of the Heartland, based in Overland Park and serving Kansas and Missouri, also provided financial support for the project. The video/DVD is fully endorsed by the National Parkinson Foundation in Miami, the Struthers Parkinson's Center in Minneapolis and the Parkinson Foundation of the Heartland in Overland Park, which also provided support for the project. The American Parkinson Disease Association and Michael J. Fox Foundation, both in New York City, also favorably reviewed "Motivating Moves for People with Parkinson's." Hamburg attended the premiere for “Motivating Moves for People with Parkinson’s" in November 2003 at the 25th Anniversary Celebration of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York City.

Roger Shimomura, Art, had his 12 print suite of lithographs entitled, “Yellow no Same,” purchased by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, to include in its permanent collection.

Paul Laird, Music, played Baroque cello with the Spencer Consort in concerts at the Spencer Museum of Art and Park University on February 9 and 23. At the national meeting of the Society for American Music in Tempe, AZ, February 27 to March 2, he took part on a panel on “Patriotism and the American Musical,” speaking on the show 1776. Laird was in charge of local arrangements for the annual meeting of the College Music Society Great Plains Chapter, which took place at KU on March 15-16. On March 22-23, Laird was in southern California for preconcert lectures for the Hutchins Consort in Irvine and Encinitas, and on March 23 he did a joint presentation with the Hutchins Consort on the life and work of acoustician and luthier Carleen Maley Hutchins for the Southern California chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. On April 4, he was at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he gave lectures on the Spanish villancico and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, the latter part of a university-wide symposium on the work. Laird published reviews of four books on Baroque music in the Fall 2002 issue of College Music Symposium and reviews of three recordings of music by Bernstein and Copland in the Fall 2002 issue of American Music.

Clarence Henry, Music, received the 2003 Faculty Recognition Award for Excellence in International Education.

Muriel Cohan, Patrick Suzeau and Willie Lenoir, Dance, performed and/or taught workshops from March 13 - 16th at the Midwest Regional American College Dance Festival. Fourteen KU students were able to attend the festival. Cohan's Accents with seven dancers was selected for the Gala concert, and Cohan/Suzeau received a standing ovation for their duet "Now and Forever" which they performed on the faculty concert. Willie Lenoir presented Ritmos de Danzas for six dancers in the Informal Concert, which was received with enthusiasm. The festival took place at Northern Iowa University.